LEWES, Del.- Students in the Cape Henlopen School District normally go back to school the day after Labor Day, but this year school starts Sept. 16.
All Cape High School students will use Zoom with their teachers on Wednesdays. Students with last names that start with A - L who opted for in-person classes will go to class at the high school on Mondays and Tuesdays and be online the rest of the week. Last names M - Z and Academic Challenge students will get to go in-person Thursdays and Fridays. Students also had the option to go back to school fully remote.
Principal Nikki Miller says the new hybrid and remote learning models are 100% better than when school buildings closed in March.
"When we had remote in the spring, it was a challenge for students to manage eight different classes online, eight different teachers, eight different expectations," Miller says.
This is not the senior year Sophia Ferguson had always imagined.
"It's just a messy situation," Ferguson says.
Ferguson will be starting school online, hoping more physical seats in her classes open up. Freshman Dylan Rodgers has that opportunity twice a week.
"I wanted to come see the high school," says Rodgers.
Rodgers' mom Andrea Chappell is hoping the new hybrid learning model will bring the best of both worlds.
"He's really good at being disciplined, staying on top of his studies and his school work," Chappell says. "He gets to eat snacks."
Cape's Guidance Counseling Team made this video to explain how classes are scheduled differently this year and how students can schedule a time to zoom with them.
With an a/b block schedule last year, students alternated between even and odd number periods every day. With the 4x4 block schedule this year, they'll take even number periods this semester and odd number periods next semester.
Miller says Cape worked on this schedule over the summer, looking for a way to give students and teachers more time face to face.
"Instead of doing the eight class periods, we're only focusing on four," Miller says. "They can really get more instruction that way. So then after this semester then they'll move to the next four classes."
Ferguson is concerned about only taking four classes at a time.
"If I have the SAT later or even now when I have math second semester, that might affect it because you're not really getting the right information at the right time," Ferguson says.
Miller says the challenges are outweighed.
"It's more important to be able to ease our students and to be able to focus on the support they need and to give them less instead of more," Miller says.
Students will take what would normally be one-credit semester courses, like physical education and driver's education, for one marking period.
"You still get the same amount of time because instead of seeing your classes every other day, you see them everyday," says Miller.
Miller says remote students who want to start taking some classes in person can call the school to be put on the waiting list. She says it's possible they could get in during the first semester.